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Getting business and doing it.
Many young solicitors starting practice concentrate
on making contacts and getting new business. That
indeed is laudable and neccssary. It is however of equal
and even greater importance to complete work already
undertaken with efficiency. We have all heard of the
whips and scorns of time, the laws dealys, the insolence
of office and the spurns which patient merit of the
unworthy takes.
The delays of the law are often unjustly attributed
to our profession. That delays do exist cannot be denied
often due to Government Departments and failure to
reform the law and legal procedures and other causes
outside our control. Sometimes I am afraid we are
remiss ourselves in failing to organise our offices properly
and to learn and apply the principles which are being
adopted in business concerns many of which are our
clients and look to us for guidance. It is a strange
curcumstance that solicitors who are looked up to as
the guides and mentors of their clients in matters
not only of law but of worldly wisdom so often neglect
the purely business aspect of their own practices.
It must be remembered that the efficiencv and speed
with which a solicitor works depends not only on him-
self and his staff but al:o on the co-operation which he
receives from other practitioners and from Government
Departments and other correspondents. Among the
basic factors to be considered are control of office
papers, an adequate accounting system, valuation of
office time and co-ojieration with other practitioners.
Office papers
1'he control of office papers depends on the establish-
ment of a simple and readily accessible filing system so
that all documents which are required in connection
with a particular case can be kept together in proper
order and obtained without delay when required. Filing
systems are various and every one has his own particular
ideas and prejudices. Furthermore most individuals are
either unable or unwilling to change a system already
in operation. The main thing is to have a system and
to operate it to the limit of its efficient use. For those
who are about to instal a filing system or who find
it possible to change a system already in operation I
suggest that reference numbers combined with a double
entry card index will l>e found to be the simplest and
most efficient. Files in an office are of no use whatever
unless the fee earner by which I mean the principal or
other person dealing with a case or someone under
his direction can put his hand on the file at a moment's
notice and furthermore that all the relevant docu-
ments are on the file in the proper order.
Card indexes and numerical references
Each new case that justifies opening a file should be
given a number. Kile numbers should be in a consecu-
tive series. Two identical cards are prepared for cacli
case and two card index Iroxes provided. Each card
shows the name of the client, the title of the case,
the name of the fee earner in charge and the case
reference number. This is a double entry card index
system with two identical sets of cards. The cards are
stacked numerically in one box and alphabetically in
the other so that the reference number of a particular
case file can be traced from the alphabetical box and
the name of a client in a matter of which the file
number is known can be traced from the numerical box.
Files themselves are kept in strict numerical order
usually in steel filing cabinets in a filing room or space.
All the cards of each client are stacked together in the
alphabetical box so that the fee earner knows all the
cases in hands for tiiat client at any particular time.
This is better than keeping all the files together because
individual files, unlike individual cards, grow in size
and cards are easily handled. Each new case file is
added according to its number at the end of the line.
The place of each file can be ascertained immediately
from its number on the card.
It is absolutely essential that the reference number,
the title of the case, the date and name of the person
originating each letter, attendance or memorandum
should appear on the document.
Removal of dead files
As cases are completed and billed out to the client
the relevant cards are transferred to a dead index. At
the same time the dead files are stacked away in card-
board boxes in numerical order awaiting final disposal
or destruction. The advantage of litis system is that
any given time all the cards relating to current cases
are stacked together in the live card index and the
principal or partner in the firm should be assigned the
duty of periodically examining the live card index to
ascertain how cases arc moving. The advantage of a
card index which can be used as a ready reference for
this purpose need hardly be stressed.
There are many other aspects of office management
including accounting systems, túne-costing and proper
use of your own and staff time. These could well be
made the subject of special talks by experts and I hope
that articles about them will be published from time
to time in the
Gazette
. I have concentrated chiefly on
the filing system because I believe it is basic in any
well organised office. You can't carry the facts in your
head, if they can't be found readily on the file they
are lost for ever.
Legal Charges in Sweden
Members of the Society were instructed by a manu-
facturing firm to collect a debt in Sweden. They in-
structed lawyers in Stockholm to write to the debtor
threatening proceedings. This was done without any
result and in Januaiy 1971 the Irish solicitors received
an account from the Swedish lawyers for a total of
200 kroner (£18.42). Our members sent a remittance
for this amount and asked that one further letter be
written as nothing had been paid. They subsequently
received a further account for another 200 kroner which
they regarded as excessive. On the advice of the Society
the matter was referred to the Secretary of the Swedish
Bar Association. The Society has since been informed
that the Swedish lawyers agreed to reducc their charges
by 50%
The amount of the claim was £199 and the total
charges which apparently involved writing two letters
amounted to £27.63. It would appear that legal charges
for debt collecting work are much higher in Sweden
than in this country.
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